By Ben Bradley, WLS (Illinois)
A new plan is being considered that would change who’s in control of traffic and crowd management at many large events and road construction sites in the city. The plan would take many police officers off traffic detail and replace them with civilian workers. The proposal is getting a lot of criticism from the Chicago Police Union.
For the last year-and-a-half the Chicago Police Department has been looking high-and-low for any extra officers it can redeploy into high crime areas. Pulling police office traffic detail is part of that plan -- one that has its share of critics.
Throughout the summer and into the fall civilian traffic aides have been appearing on busy street corners. They receive 40-hours of training and then replace the sworn police officers assigned to direct traffic at sporting and other high-profile events.
“The goal is two-fold. Streamline those resources where they’re needed most, fighting crime, taking the draw out of the district so to speak,” said Monique Bond, Chicago Emergency Management spokesperson.
Police will still patrol events like the Taste of Chicago and Bears games but relieving them of traffic duty will free-up several dozen officers, allowing them to return to their districts to fight crime.
Traffic Management Authority workers are part-time city employees. They are paid $15.59 an hour. Right now there are 223 people on the payroll and by next spring there will be 800.
“I have to question the rationale. From a taxpayer’s perspective, I don’t know where the advantage is for the city. They’re at locations where no one has been at before,” said Mark Donahue, fraternal order of police.
Many question the effectiveness of this new army of city workers. This summer ABC7 News’ cameras captured traffic workers on the job. Some spent some time socializing, at other times traffic flowed fine without much direction. At times, four traffic aides congregated at one intersection.
“Personally I’ve observed one situation where four were there and I couldn’t tell who was directing traffic, who wasn’t directing traffic or what good at all they were doing?” asked Donahue.
“We would certainly rather have the intersection fully manned versus not having enough there because traffic gridlock can be very frustrating,” said Monique Bond.
The union that represents Chicago police officers is floating a plan to have the city hire off-duty officers to direct traffic. That would be more expensive.